With enough competition, prices drop to the point where you don't need insurance for anything but catastrophic care.
Great. So if you develop anything that's chronic, you're royally screwed. Same goes if you insurance companys definition of catastrophic differs from yours (hint: they'll find something in those dozens of finely-printed pages that you signed to deny you coverage).
Also, competition does nothing for emergencies. Go to the closest hospital or bleed to death, and accept whatever they bill you (an arbitrary number they made up) , right? (Hint: Lasik surgery is, in the majority of the cases, neither necessary nor especially urgent. It's a cosmetic procedure for most patients. It is therefore not a very good indicator of developments in the healthcare sector).
That's assuming we can build sufficient transport to offload folks faster than we breed - otherwise a large group of folks will be left to feel the heat....
Oh, I'm sure we can convince a few people to stick around to get a shot at being the last human on Earth.
It's a complete waste of time, especially when you find out that they have practically no knowledge of their own religion and its history, (For eg: "The bible has never been edited!")
Why, yes. It came directly from God. By fax. And in English.
It also contradicts the omnipotence of God, should he exist.
Yes. It's like saying God would win a golf tournament by remotely controlling the ball in mid-air, and then playing with gravity to make the ball roll into in the hole. My version of an omnipotent omniscient entity doesn't resort to such cheap tricks, it can hit a hole-in-one any time it wants to.
The fact is that you cannot adapt a religion to suit yourself, it's a nonsense to say I'm Christian but I concede evolution,
So, err, the pope isn't Christian, then?
And the Bible gives the reader much, much greater freedom at interpretation than the Qu'ran (which contains more than enough passages explicitly prohibiting going by anything but the literal meaning).
Learn to read. Learn to do simple boolean logic. Learn some set theory. Maybe then you can figure out that "rich and unethical people" is not equal to "all rich people".
If Saddam had never used Chemical weapons (not quite the same as WMD's but similar so they get lumped into the same group) in the 1980's would the US have been able to claim that Saddam was a threat in 2003?
Simple: By merely claiming that he may have, or is working on, WMDs. Anyone can claim that, no previous use of these weapons is necessary. Remember all the fancy pictures in the powerpoint presentation? Those weren't just about the existence of WMDs, but about having an active program of developing and building more of them.
All of the sanctions against Saddam in the 90's were as a direct result of his use of Chemical weapons on civilian targets (the Kurds),
Yeah... riiiight. And invading another country had nothing do with the sanctions. Is that what you're trying to claim? Surely it was pure coincidence that the sanctions were passed just four days after Iraq invaded Kuwait.
However, I don't get why an invasion was seen as so inevitable. Japan is an island! Just lock them in and wait - I'm
pretty sure that complete air and sea superiority could have been achieved - the Sowjets would even have helped.
In that case, I would assume that the Soviets would have helped themselves to Japan by invading it first.
They're either buried in the desert or were sold off(Iran I'm looking at you).
Yeah, right. It's a really brilliant idea to sell chemical weapons to the very country you've been using them on just a decade earlier, and which _still_ hates your guts.
The USA was happy to sign those treaties to look good but as soon as it prevents them from doing something they want to do, they are happy to violate it.
Don't forget the Vienna convention on consular relations, too.
In that case, they just conveniently "forgot" to implement legislation to make the States comply with the terms of the treaty (e.g. when a foreigner is arrested, the appropriate embassy needs to be notified) - hence, you can be stuck in jail without anyone from your country ever knowing what happened, since the local cop just has to comply with State laws, not international treaties that the US is signatory of.
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A negative credit report, i.e. you being strapped for cash, means that you may be susceptible to bribes.
However, a positive credit report may mean that you're pretty good at taking bribes.
Geez people, can we cut out the "OMG pre-crime!!!" paranoia? A credit report is not a police background check and shouldn't be treated as such.
Why not snuff it today, then?
Your remote ancestor having the last word someday is just priceless.
Because it'll be a problem in just a handful of decades, not a few millions of them.
10^5, actually. The apocalypse is 500 million years in the future, not just 500,000.
With enough competition, prices drop to the point where you don't need insurance for anything but catastrophic care.
Great. So if you develop anything that's chronic, you're royally screwed. Same goes if you insurance companys definition of catastrophic differs from yours (hint: they'll find something in those dozens of finely-printed pages that you signed to deny you coverage).
Also, competition does nothing for emergencies. Go to the closest hospital or bleed to death, and accept whatever they bill you (an arbitrary number they made up) , right? (Hint: Lasik surgery is, in the majority of the cases, neither necessary nor especially urgent. It's a cosmetic procedure for most patients. It is therefore not a very good indicator of developments in the healthcare sector).
Oh, I'm sure we can convince a few people to stick around to get a shot at being the last human on Earth.
You forgot the most important part: Only if you're healthy.
Why, yes. It came directly from God. By fax. And in English.
*SCNR*
Yes. It's like saying God would win a golf tournament by remotely controlling the ball in mid-air, and then playing with gravity to make the ball roll into in the hole. My version of an omnipotent omniscient entity doesn't resort to such cheap tricks, it can hit a hole-in-one any time it wants to.
So, err, the pope isn't Christian, then?
And the Bible gives the reader much, much greater freedom at interpretation than the Qu'ran (which contains more than enough passages explicitly prohibiting going by anything but the literal meaning).
Yes, all rich people hate community.
Learn to read. Learn to do simple boolean logic. Learn some set theory. Maybe then you can figure out that "rich and unethical people" is not equal to "all rich people".
No, you're thinking of hamartophobia.
Simple: By merely claiming that he may have, or is working on, WMDs. Anyone can claim that, no previous use of these weapons is necessary. Remember all the fancy pictures in the powerpoint presentation? Those weren't just about the existence of WMDs, but about having an active program of developing and building more of them.
All of the sanctions against Saddam in the 90's were as a direct result of his use of Chemical weapons on civilian targets (the Kurds),
Yeah ... riiiight. And invading another country had nothing do with the sanctions. Is that what you're trying to claim? Surely it was pure coincidence that the sanctions were passed just four days after Iraq invaded Kuwait.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sanctions
That is pretty much irrelevant for a question about the Iran-Iraq war.
If he had never used them the US would have had no excuse to invade.
WTH? The US had absofrickenlutely nothing against Iraq using chemical weapons against Iran.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war
Don't you mean "sinophobia"?
They worked just fine for Saddam in his war against Iran. Or for the US against Japan.
He was using a Pentium, duh.
0 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024 2048 4096
One of these is not a power of 2.
Who know, maybe they still have some vintage WWI pieces somewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun
No, but it helps.
In that case, I would assume that the Soviets would have helped themselves to Japan by invading it first.
I doubt it's a weapon to repel pirates.
Yeah, right. It's a really brilliant idea to sell chemical weapons to the very country you've been using them on just a decade earlier, and which _still_ hates your guts.
That's the sucky part. "Close" only counts with nuclear weapons.
Also, launching ICBMs can have nasty international repercussions, regardless of their payload.
Don't forget the Vienna convention on consular relations, too.
In that case, they just conveniently "forgot" to implement legislation to make the States comply with the terms of the treaty (e.g. when a foreigner is arrested, the appropriate embassy needs to be notified) - hence, you can be stuck in jail without anyone from your country ever knowing what happened, since the local cop just has to comply with State laws, not international treaties that the US is signatory of.